Episodes

Well, we are just about done. We are on Step 14, the final step in researching colleges on your son or daughter’s LLCO (that is, one last time, the Long List of College Options). And, one last reminder: Feel free to rush online and get our workbook How To Explore Your College Options: A Workbook for High School Students (available at Amazon). It’s a steal at $9.95!
Step 14 is, to many people, the most important step and even the only step. I find it ironic that we would end our...

Well, this is where it gets serious. Researching Step 13 will give you and your son or daughter an idea about how likely it is that he or she will be accepted by a college. Of course, no one can say for sure whether your kid’s grades or admission test scores or extracurricular and community service activities or letters of recommendation will be appealing enough to get him or her admitted to a particular college. But several academic hurdles might turn out to be what stands between your...

Well, listeners, the end is in sight. Today is Step 12 out of the 14 steps we want your son or daughter to take this summer to make his or her search for colleges more effective. Just to repeat, these steps are based on our workbook How To Explore Your College Options: A Workbook for High School Students (there is one with your name on it waiting at Amazon).
Step 12 asks your son or daughter to investigate what the colleges on his or her LLCO (that’s his or her Long List of College...

Today is Step 11 out of the 14 steps we want your son or daughter to take this summer to make his or her search for colleges more effective. As you know by now, these steps are based on our workbook How To Explore Your College Options: A Workbook for High School Students (get one at Amazon ASAP).
Step 11 brings us to the safety of students on campus and the security measures that a college takes to keep its students safe. Parents: Getting information about security measures on campus is...

Well, we are up to Step 10 out of the 14 steps of your kid’s summer homework. So far, so good. Keep checking our workbook How To Explore Your College Options: A Workbook for High School Students for further detail and more examples (it’s still available at Amazon).
Step 10 calls for your son or daughter to investigate on-campus housing options, which could make some difference in where to apply and where to enroll if you are planning for him or her to live in college housing. Some...

Today’s episode is about Step 9 of your kid’s summer homework. All 14 steps are being explained in our series of episodes this summer and have been explained, with more examples and details, in our workbook How To Explore Your College Options: A Workbook for High School Students. Workbooks are still available from Amazon if you want one for your son or daughter.
Step 9 looks at the components that make up the college schedule. For many colleges, these questions will produce a rather...

Today’s episode is about Step 8 of your kid’s summer homework. That’s 8 out of 14 steps, all of which are explained in our series of episodes this summer and also, with more examples and details, in our workbook How To Explore Your College Options: A Workbook for High School Students. Workbooks are still available from Amazon if you want one for your son or daughter.
Step 8 is about the topic that most people think is most critical to choosing a college--that is, academics. Most people...

Well, we are up to Step 7 of your kid’s summer homework, and we are officially halfway there. All 14 steps (7 down, 7 more to go) are explained in our episodes this summer and also at greater length with more examples and details in our workbook How To Explore Your College Options: A Workbook for High School Students. Remember to order a workbook from Amazon for your son or daughter if you want more explanation and the actual worksheets.
Step 7 asks your son or daughter to consider class...

Today we are going to talk about Step 6 of your kid’s summer homework, as explained in our episodes throughout the summer and also more elaborately in our workbook How To Explore Your College Options: A Workbook for High School Students. So, order a workbook from Amazon for your son or daughter if you want the longer version and the actual worksheets.
We are up to Questions 8 through 16 on the College Profile Worksheet this week as your kid answers nine questions about student enrollment...

Today we are going to talk about Step 5 of your kid’s summer homework. If you have forgotten, this summer homework is based on our workbook How To Explore Your College Options: A Workbook for High School Students. Get one from Amazon for your son or daughter before they are all gone!
In the last episode, we asked your kid to do some research about the history and mission of each college on his or her Long List of College Options (or LLCO, for short) and to answer the first four questions...

Today we are going to talk about the Step 4 of your kid’s summer homework. Regular listeners know that this summer homework is based on our workbook How To Explore Your College Options: A Workbook for High School Students. It’s not too late to get one from Amazon for your son or daughter.
In the last two episodes, you and your kid have been getting ready to start the real work. You have hopefully completed Step 1 by creating the all-important Long List of College Options (or LLCO, as we...

Today we are going to talk about Steps 2 and 3 of your kid’s summer homework. If you haven’t gotten our workbook for your son or daughter, How To Explore Your College Options: A Workbook for High School Students, then you haven’t done your summer homework. So, get one from Amazon, or listen very carefully to this episode and the next 11 like it.
In the last episode, you and your kid hopefully completed Step 1 of your summer homework by creating the all-important Long List of College...

Today we are going to talk about the first step of your kid’s summer homework. As we said last week, we know that summer vacation is still a couple of weeks away for some of you, but I have to believe that no real work is still being done in most high schools, especially not for seniors. So, let’s get busy! If you haven’t gotten our workbook for your son or daughter, How To Explore Your College Options: A Workbook for High School Students, there is still time.
1. What You Are About To Do...

Before we start today’s episode about the most important step in the college application and admissions process, we want to let you know that we are headed into our final season of USACollegeChat. Well, I wouldn’t rule out coming back on Netflix or something by popular demand from our listening audience, but we are at least going to need to go on hiatus for a while. Maybe we will be like Game of Thrones (which I have never seen) where there can be a year between seasons. I am headed out to...

Welcome back to our new series entitled Looking to Next Year. Today, we want to look at a well-known college recruitment practice and its ramifications. That practice is the visiting of high schools by college admissions staff. Maybe our discussion today won’t come as a surprise to you; but, whether it does or doesn’t, it’s a sad commentary on the U.S. in 2018.
1. A New Study
Just a few episodes ago, we quoted from an article in Inside Higher Ed by Scott Jaschik, and today we find...

We are starting a new series today because we think that the college ship has sailed for almost all of our listening families with seniors. Of course, some of you are still looking at a few options; some of you have even put down deposits at more than one college, or so we hear; and, some of you might be frantically searching for a new choice that offers rolling admissions or very late deadlines in the next couple of months. As always, if any of you are in the still-undecided group, give...

As we said last week, most of you have made a decision about what college your kid is going to by now. You all have compared and contrasted the colleges that accepted your son or daughter and made the best decision you thought you could. However, there might be one or two of you still holding out some hope for coming off the wait list of your kid’s favorite college choice. I know that some of you have even put a deposit down on a sure thing while not entirely giving up hope on the long...

Well, most of you have made a decision about what college your kid is going to by now. You all have sifted through the acceptances (hopefully, there was more than one), weighing all manner of things while making the decision. However, I know there are still a few of you out there who have not quite decided yet. I know because I talked to a mother just a few days ago who was in the throes of helping her daughter make her decision. Our meeting was quite accidental; she was the physician’s...

This is the third episode in our series, Decision Time Again, because, of course, it is actually decision time for lots of parents and kids out there.
Although USACollegeChat is headquartered on the East Coast, we have some loyal listeners in California, and California colleges, including its public universities, are increasingly popular among students back here in the East. So, with that in mind, we have today’s episode. It is designed to make some of you feel better if your senior...

This is the second episode in our new series, Decision Time Again. It’s “again” for us because, as we said last week, we always do some episodes about college decision making in April, for obvious reasons.
1. Isn’t This Counterintuitive?
Every year at this time, pundits and educators write articles and op-ed pieces about how it doesn’t matter if your kid didn’t get into an Ivy League school, how admissions at top schools is an insane process that turns down thousands of perfectly...